Often we become homeschoolers in opposition to the schools, and then we develop into a particular kind of homeschooler in opposition to other kinds of homeschoolers. Sometimes being in opposition takes on a life of its own, and doing battle on the side of the correct educational philosophy can become an end in itself. Having once been a teacher in the schools, I had built up a plentiful supply of opposition to them. I knew first-hand how incompetent and destructive most schools are. Opposition to the schools was a great source of energy for me and the foundation for much that I have learned about learning. But opposing something bad doesn't of itself furnish us with something good.

I had planned to do a lot for Jamie in our homeschooling. I would make all kinds of information and skills available to him. I wasn't going to push and prod; it would be an academic democracy with both of us vitally interested in the outcome. We would learn a couple of languages, master a few musical instruments, become computer literate, maybe build a nuclear reactor in the basement as a science project. Next to the Earl Stevens Homeschooling Program, the schools would seem to be concentration camps of ignorance and defeat.

The first official homeschooling notification that I produced for Maine education authorities sounded as though I intended to open a branch of the University of Heidelberg. As a supplement to the main body of the text, coming right after the list of several hundred books that we planned to read that year, I wrote a long, long explanation of my philosophy of education. It was righteously child oriented and scornful of the subject orientation of the public schools. Ha! Just let them stand in the way of my vision! I was pretty well prepared to speak to a joint session of Congress should it became necessary. Maybe the people at the Portland Public Schools would read all this material and call out into the hallways, "Everybody come in here and listen to this! Earl Stevens says some pretty definitive things about education that could benefit all of us."

I have since come to realize that school officials mainly want to establish whether or not you are in compliance with the law so that they can act on your paperwork and then forget about you. Generally speaking, they are not all that interested in whether or not you have discovered eternal secrets of learning. However, my labors may at least have given me a reputation at the School Department as a true fanatic, a person to be avoided if you don't want to risk getting a headache. Very likely what they said, after weighing my notification on a vegetable scale, was, "Let's just throw this guy's paperwork in the approved pile, and then we won't risk having to talk with him."

Of course most of my early plans for Jamie's education came to nothing because they had more to do with my new position as home university president than they had to do with him. Often Jamie wasn't at all interested in learning a particular skill or collection of facts, but he was usually polite about it. "Great, Dad, really great.

Interesting!" he would say in answer to my question of what he thought about what I was telling him. But I could see that he was peering out the window at the cat across the street, or dreaming about the day he would lead Starfleet Command against the alien invaders.

Often, neither of us was interested, and it was easy to let things slide. Sometimes inertia protects us from folly. It was more fun to play with the dog, and the dog was always ready. We spent most of our first year letting things slide and fooling around. The dog loved it.

When we see that our home education plans are not working out especially well, there are a number of ways we can react. We can feel guilty for failing; we can blame our children for not living up to our expectations; we can work ourselves and our children even harder and hope that something good comes of it. Or we can just step back for a while and see what happens. Homeschooling isn't a contest.

It doesn't matter a speck whether a seven year old child learns some "basic skill" this year or next or the one after that. I eventually discovered that it is possible to spend the first several years of "official" homeschooling doing little more than nurturing and playing and suffer no ill effects.

My biggest personal discovery is about my relationship with my child.

I found that the basic skills which deserve most of my attention have to do with Jamie's attitudes about life, assumptions about himself, courage, willingness to risk failure, curiosity, self confidence, and a host of other qualities that enable us to live life fully and well. Like any parent or teacher, I have a hundred opportunities each day to make a child think less of himself, to weaken his spirit, and to needlessly obstruct his freedom of movement and thought. The challenge for me is to avoid these opportunities whenever possible by doing more listening than talking and by sharing ideas instead of dispensing knowledge. With that thought in mind I retired from my position as university president, probably for good.

Jamie and I are still fooling around. Some of our fooling around evolves into interesting adventures, profitable to both of us. If we don't master foreign languages or build nuclear reactors, we do learn a lot about the world and about ourselves. I have come to realize that there is a great deal more substance and vision in my child than in anyone's educational philosophies, mine included. Observing him now, and trying to understand him better, helps me to avoid pretending that I know what should be done with him. The less I think about his future, and about molding him to fit it, the more clearly I can see him and the more honestly I can be available to him. While Jamie will be trying many new things this year both with and without me, this autumn I have learned that my relationship with my child is the essence of my home education program.

This essay was originally published in Earl Steven's column Talk About Learning, Nov/Dec 89.